Miles To Go Before I Sleep by Jackie Nink Pflug

the plane, the one with the glasses, signaled to people, one at a time, to get up and go. I had to go to the bathroom so badly, but I didn’t dare raise my hand. I still didn’t want to draw any attention to myself…. I didn’t want the hijackers to know anything more about me than they already did.
    Minutes stretched into hours as I continued waiting to die. I knew there would be little or no warning when the time came. Each breath might be my last.
    At one point, the hijackers allowed food to be distributed among the passengers. A heavyset woman with long dark hair, the chief flight attendant on the plane, walked up and down the aisle passing out deli sandwiches wrapped in clear plastic. Many of us hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours and were famished.
    The flight attendant tossed a deli sandwich on the seat next to me, where Scarlett had been sitting.
    â€œI can’t eat that,” I said.
    I couldn’t pick it up because my hands were tied behind my back.
    The flight attendant didn’t hear me and just kept walking.
    Another flight attendant, much younger, saw the sandwich sitting on the seat. She came over to me and said, “Would you like to eat?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    She picked up the sandwich and fed it to me in little bites. The younger flight attendant had dark hair and was very pretty. She looked Egyptian.
    â€œAre you thirsty?” she asked me.
    â€œYeah,” I said.
    â€œWould you like some water?”
    â€œThat sounds good.”
    She went and filled a cup with some water and held it up to my mouth so I could drink.

    As I waited my turn to die, I reflected on the meaning and direction my life had taken. This was no idle exercise. It was time to be totally honest with myself.
    Did I like the life I had been leading?
    Continuing to review my life, I felt that the answer was yes. I was especially proud of all the work I’d done to free my spirit in the previous two years. After years of self-doubt and second-guessing myself, I had acted on my lifelong dream of living in a foreign country.
    In February 1984, I’d finally gotten up the nerve to attend a job fair in New York City for teachers interested in working overseas.
    I sure seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Many schools at the job fair were just starting special education programs and were looking to hire someone with my background in education and diagnostics. Everything was working out better than I could have ever hoped or planned.
    A few weeks after flying back to Houston, the job offers started rolling in. Eventually, I accepted a position with the American School in Stavanger, Norway. In August 1984, my long-postponed dreams were coming true: I was going to live overseas and in a place where it snowed.
    I remember talking with my dad out in the garage after my bags were all packed. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Dad asked.
    I said, “Yeah, Dad, this is what I really want to do. I have to do this. I have to go out and see the world. It’s what I have been dreaming about. I don’t know what I’m after, but I have to do it.”
    He saw the excitement and commitment in my eyes. “I know how you feel,” he said. “When I joined the navy after high school, I loved traveling around and seeing all those places. Sometimes, I wish I’d had a chance to travel more.”
    My dad is a man of few words, but I knew he’d just given me his blessing.
    Once I made the decision to follow my dream of going overseas, I experienced a major personal growth spurt. I started erasing some of the old tapes from childhood that had been blocking me from doing the things I really wanted to do. For the first time in my life, I was deciding what was right for me. I wasn’t letting others’ opinions and beliefs about who I was control me.
    Living in Norway was the first time I’d ever really lived away from home for an extended period.